Volkswagen has walked away from talks with Renault to jointly develop an affordable electric version of the Twingo car, Reuters reported Friday, citing sources familiar with the situation, in a setback for the EU carmakers' efforts to fend off Chinese rivals. From the report: The collapse of negotiations could mean the German carmaker may have to go it alone in developing its own affordable electric vehicle (EV). Renault will continue designing its electric Twingo, scheduled to hit the market in 2026. Both had hoped that sharing the work would cut costs that represent a key hurdle for European carmakers in the face of cheaper cars from China. Volkswagen broke off discussions mainly because Renault had wanted to build the car in one of its plants at a time when VW is seeking to fully utilise its European production network, one of the sources said.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: In July last year, OpenAI announced the formation of a new research team that would prepare for the advent of supersmart artificial intelligence capable of outwitting and overpowering its creators. Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's chief scientist and one of the company's cofounders, was named as the colead of this new team. OpenAI said the team would receive 20 percent of its computing power. Now OpenAI's "superalignment team" is no more, the company confirms. That comes after the departures of several researchers involved, Tuesday's news that Sutskever was leaving the company, and the resignation of the team's other colead. The group's work will be absorbed into OpenAI's other research efforts. Sutskever's departure made headlines because although he'd helped CEO Sam Altman start OpenAI in 2015 and set the direction of the research that led to ChatGPT, he was also one of the four board members who fired Altman in November. Altman was restored as CEO five chaotic days later after a mass revolt by OpenAI staff and the brokering of a deal in which Sutskever and two other company directors left the board. Hours after Sutskever's departure was announced on Tuesday, Jan Leike, the former DeepMind researcher who was the superalignment team's other colead, posted on X that he had resigned.

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Hopes that replacement fuels for airplanes will slash carbon pollution are misguided and support for these alternatives could even worsen the climate crisis, a new report has warned. The Guardian: There is currently "no realistic or scalable alternative" to standard kerosene-based jet fuels, and touted "sustainable aviation fuels" are well off track to replace them in a timeframe needed to avert dangerous climate change, despite public subsidies, the report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive thinktank, found. "While there are kernels of possibility, we should bring a high level of skepticism to the claims that alternative fuels will be a timely substitute for kerosene-based jet fuels," the report said. Chuck Collins, co-author of the report, said: "To bring these fuels to the scale needed would require massive subsidies, the trade-offs would be unacceptable and would take resources aware from more urgent decarbonization priorities. It's a huge greenwashing exercise by the aviation industry. It's magical thinking that they will be able to do this." In the US, Joe Biden's administration has set a goal for 3bn gallons of sustainable aviation fuel, which is made from non-petroleum sources such as food waste, woody biomass and other feedstocks, to be produced by 2030, which it said will cut aviation's planet-heating emissions by 20%.

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Microsoft plans a major shakeup of its videogame sales strategy by releasing the coming installment of Call of Duty to its subscription service instead of the longtime, lucrative approach of only selling it a la carte. WSJ: The plans, which mark the biggest change to Microsoft's gaming division since it closed the $75 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard, are expected to be announced at the company's annual Xbox showcase next month, according to people familiar with the matter. Call of Duty is one of the most successful entertainment properties ever, generating over $30 billion in lifetime revenue. Activision, which makes it, has long released new editions annually, selling about 25 million copies on average, selling for around $70 each in recent years. Before the Microsoft deal last year, Activision was reluctant to fully embrace subscription-based models for a game that still attracts a premium price. Microsoft's subscription service, Game Pass, costs $9.99 to $16.99 a month, and provides access to hundreds of games from Microsoft and dozens of other companies.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: An Arizona woman has been accused of helping generate millions of dollars for North Korea's ballistic missile program by helping citizens of that country land IT jobs at US-based Fortune 500 companies. Christina Marie Chapman, 49, of Litchfield Park, Arizona, raised $6.8 million in the scheme, federal prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed Thursday. Chapman allegedly funneled the money to North Korea's Munitions Industry Department, which is involved in key aspects of North Korea's weapons program, including its development of ballistic missiles. Part of the alleged scheme involved Chapman and co-conspirators compromising the identities of more than 60 people living in the US and using their personal information to get North Koreans IT jobs across more than 300 US companies. As another part of the alleged conspiracy, Chapman operated a "laptop farm" at one of her residences to give the employers the impression the North Korean IT staffers were working from within the US; the laptops were issued by the employers. By using proxies and VPNs, the overseas workers appeared to be connecting from US-based IP addresses. Chapman also received employees' paychecks at her home, prosecutors said. Federal prosecutors said that Chapman and three North Korean IT workers -- using the aliases of Jiho Han, Chunji Jin, Haoran Xu, and others -- had been working since at least 2020 to plan a remote-work scheme. In March of that year, prosecutors said, an individual messaged Chapman on LinkedIn and invited her to "be the US face" of their company. From August to November of 2022, the North Korean IT workers allegedly amassed guides and other information online designed to coach North Koreans on how to write effective cover letters and resumes and falsify US Permanent Resident Cards. Under the alleged scheme, the foreign workers developed "fictitious personas and online profiles to match the job requirements" and submitted fake documents to the Homeland Security Department as part of an employment eligibility check. Chapman also allegedly discussed with co-conspirators about transferring the money earned from their work. Chapman was arrested Wednesday. It wasn't immediately known when she or Didenko were scheduled to make their first appearance in court. If convicted, Chapman faces 97.5 years in prison, and Didenko faces up to 67.5 years.

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Data center construction levels are at an all-time high. And more than ever, companies that need them have already called dibs. From a report: In the first quarter of 2024, what amounts to about half of the existing supply of data center megawattage in the US is under construction, according to real estate services firm CBRE. And 84% of that is already leased. Typically that rate had been about 50% the last few years -- already notably higher than other real estate classes. "I'm astonished and impressed by the demand for facilities yet to be fully constructed," CBRE Data Center Research Director Gordon Dolven told Sherwood. That advanced interest means that despite the huge amount of construction, there's still going to be a shortage of data centers to meet demand. In other words, data center vacancy rates are staying low and rents high. Nationwide the vacancy rates are near record lows of 3.7% and average asking rent for data centers was up 19% year over year, according to CBRE. It was up 42% in Northern Virginia, where many data centers are located. These sorts of price jumps are "unprecedented" compared with other types of real estate. For comparison, rents for industrial and logistics real estate, another hot asset class used in e-commerce, is expected to go up 8% this year.

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Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Following Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund providing significant funding for GNOME, Rust Coreutils, PHP, a systemd bug bounty, and numerous other free software projects, the FFmpeg multimedia library is the latest beneficiary to this funding from the Germany government. The Sovereign Tech Fund notes that the FFmpeg project is receiving 157,580 euros for 2024 and 2025. An announcement on the FFmpeg.org project site notes: "The FFmpeg community is excited to announce that Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund has become its first governmental sponsor. Their support will help sustain the [maintenance] of the FFmpeg project, a critical open-source software multimedia component essential to bringing audio and video to billions around the world everyday."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's amazing, and a little sad, to think that something created in 1989 that changed how people used and viewed the then-nascent Internet had nearly vanished by 2024. Nearly, that is, because the dogged researchers and enthusiasts at The Serial Port channel on YouTube have found what is likely the last existing copy of Archie. Archie, first crafted by Alan Emtage while a student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, allowed for the searching of various "anonymous" FTP servers around what was then a very small web of universities, researchers, and government and military nodes. It was groundbreaking; it was the first echo of the "anything, anywhere" Internet to come. And when The Serial Port went looking, it very much did not exist. While Archie would eventually be supplanted by Gopher, web portals, and search engines, it remains a useful way to index FTP sites and certainly should be preserved. The Serial Port did this, and the road to get there is remarkable and intriguing. You are best off watching the video of their rescue, along with its explanatory preamble. But I present here some notable bits of the tale, perhaps to tempt you into digging further.

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Seven Spirals writes: NetBSD committers are now banned from using any AI-generated code from ChatGPT, CoPilot, or other AI tools. Time will tell how this plays out with both their users and core team. "If you commit code that was not written by yourself, double check that the license on that code permits import into the NetBSD source repository, and permits free distribution," reads NetBSD's updated commit guidelines. "Check with the author(s) of the code, make sure that they were the sole author of the code and verify with them that they did not copy any other code. Code generated by a large language model or similar technology, such as GitHub/Microsoft's Copilot, OpenAI's ChatGPT, or Facebook/Meta's Code Llama, is presumed to be tainted code, and must not be committed without prior written approval by core."

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According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the U.S. has officially surpassed 5 million solar installations. "The 5 million milestone comes just eight years after the U.S. achieved its first million in 2016 -- a stark contrast to the four decades it took to reach that initial milestone since the first grid-connected solar project in 1973," reports Electrek. From the report: Since the beginning of 2020, more than half of all U.S. solar installations have come online, and over 25% have been activated since the Inflation Reduction Act became law 20 months ago. Solar arrays have been installed on homes and businesses and as utility-scale solar farms. The U.S. solar market was valued at $51 billion in 2023. Even with changes in state policies, market trends indicate robust growth in solar installations across the U.S. According to SEIA forecasts, the number of solar installations is expected to double to 10 million by 2030 and triple to 15 million by 2034. The residential sector represents 97% of all U.S. solar installations. This sector has consistently set new records for annual installations over the past several years, achieving new highs for five straight years and in 10 out of the last 12 years. The significant growth in residential solar can be attributed to its proven value as an investment for homeowners who wish to manage their energy costs more effectively. California is the frontrunner with 2 million solar installations, though recent state policies have significantly damaged its rooftop solar market. Meanwhile, other states are experiencing rapid growth. For example, Illinois, which had only 2,500 solar installations in 2017, now boasts over 87,000. Similarly, Florida has seen its solar installations surge from 22,000 in 2017 to 235,000 today. By 2030, 22 states or territories are anticipated to surpass 100,000 solar installations. The U.S. has enough solar installed to cover every residential rooftop in the Four Corners states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

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In a press release today, the best music player of the 1990s announced that it'll open up its source code to developers worldwide. "Winamp will open up its code for the player used on Windows, enabling the entire community to participate in its development," said the company. "This is an invitation to global collaboration, where developers worldwide can contribute their expertise, ideas, and passion to help this iconic software evolve." Alexandre Saboundjian, CEO of Winamp, explains: "This is a decision that will delight millions of users around the world. Our focus will be on new mobile players and other platforms. We will be releasing a new mobile player at the beginning of July. Still, we don't want to forget the tens of millions of users who use the software on Windows and will benefit from thousands of developers' experience and creativity. Winamp will remain the owner of the software and will decide on the innovations made in the official version."

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Sony Music Group, one of the world's biggest record labels, warned AI companies and music streaming platforms not to use the company's content without explicit permission. From a report: Sony Music, whose artists include Lil Nas X and Celine Dion, sent letters to more than 700 companies in an effort to protect its intellectual property, which includes album cover art, metadata, musical compositions and lyrics, from being used for training AI models. "Unauthorized use" of Sony Music Group content in the "training, development or commercialization of AI systems" deprives the company and its artists of control and compensation for those works, according to the letter, which was obtained by Bloomberg News. [...] Sony Music, along with the rest of the industry, is scrambling to balance the creative potential of the fast-moving technology while also protecting artists' rights and its own profits. "We support artists and songwriters taking the lead in embracing new technologies in support of their art," Sony Music Group said in statement Thursday. "However, that innovation must ensure that songwriters' and recording artists' rights, including copyrights, are respected."

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After shutting down its awards system last July, Reddit announced that it is bringing it back, with much of the same and some new features. There'll be "a new design for awards, a new award button under eligible posts and a leaderboard showing top awards earned for a comment or a post," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The company sunset its awards program last year along with the ability for users to purchase coins. At the same time, Reddit introduced "Golden Upvotes," which were purchased directly through cash. In a new post, the company said the system wasn't as expressive as awards. "While the golden upvote was certainly simpler in theory, in practice, it missed the mark. It wasn't as fun or expressive as legacy awards, and it was unclear how it benefited the recipient," the social network said. Users who want to give awards to posts and comments will need to buy "gold," which kind of replaces coins. On a support page, the company mentioned that, on average, awards cost anywhere between 15 to 50 gold. Gold packages in Reddit's mobile apps currently start at $1.99 for 100 gold. Users can buy as much as 2,750 gold for $49.99. The company is also adding some safeguards to the awards system, such as disabling awards in NSFW subreddits, trauma and addiction support subreddits, and subreddits with mature content. Additionally, users will be able to report awards to avoid them being used for moderator removals.

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Take-Two Interactive is doubling down Grand Theft Auto VI's release date, saying the long-awaited sequel will be out fall 2025 despite rumors of a possible delay into 2026. From a report: Take-Two announced GTA 6's updated release window in its latest earnings report, saying that its current outlook is based on the new date. "We do feel highly confident that we'll deliver [Grand Theft Auto VI] in fall of 2025," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told IGN in an interview when asked if he was concerned that GTA 6 may get delayed.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt, written by Mike Masnick: If you're a fan of chaos, well, the TikTok ban situation is providing plenty of chaos to follow. Ever since the US government made it clear it was seriously going to move forward with the obviously unconstitutional and counterproductive plan to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok or have the app effectively banned from the U.S., various rich people have been stepping up with promises to buy the app. There was former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with plans to buy it. Then there was "mean TV investor, who wants you to forget his sketchy history" Kevin O'Leary with his own TikTok buyout plans. I'm sure there have been other rich dudes as well, though strikingly few stories of actual companies interested in purchasing TikTok. But now there's another billionaire to add to the pile: billionaire real estate/property mogul Frank McCourt (who has had some scandals in his own history) has had an interesting second act over the last few years as a big believer in decentralized social media. He created and funded Project Liberty, which has become deeply involved in a number of efforts to create infrastructure for decentralized social media, including its own Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSTP). Over the past few years, I've had a few conversations with people involved in Project Liberty and related projects. Their hearts are in the right place in wanting to rethink the internet in a manner that empowers users over big companies, even if I don't always agree with their approach (he also frequently seems to surround himself with all sorts of tech haters, who have somewhat unrealistic visions of the world). Either way, McCourt and Project Liberty have now announced a plan to bid on TikTok. They plan to merge it into his decentralization plans. "Frank McCourt, Founder of Project Liberty and Executive Chairman of McCourt Global, today announced that Project Liberty is organizing a bid to acquire the popular social media platform TikTok in the U.S., with the goal of placing people and data empowerment at the center of the platform's design and purpose," reads a press release from Project Liberty. "Working in consultation with Guggenheim Securities, the investment banking and capital markets business of Guggenheim Partners, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law firms, as well as world-renowned technologists, academics, community leaders, parents and engaged citizens, this bid for TikTok offers an innovative, alternative vision for the platform's infrastructure -- one that allows people to reclaim agency over their digital identities and data by proposing to migrate the platform to a new digital open-source protocol. In launching the bid, McCourt and his partners are seizing this opportunity to return control and value back into the hands of individuals and provide Americans with a meaningful voice, choice, and stake in the future of the web."

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Kylie Robison reports via The Verge: Hugging Face, one of the biggest names in machine learning, is committing $10 million in free shared GPUs to help developers create new AI technologies. The goal is to help small developers, academics, and startups counter the centralization of AI advancements. [...] Delangue is concerned about AI startups' ability to compete with the tech giants. Most significant advancements in artificial intelligence -- like GPT-4, the algorithms behind Google Search, and Tesla's Full Self-Driving system -- remain hidden within the confines of major tech companies. Not only are these corporations financially incentivized to keep their models proprietary, but with billions of dollars at their disposal for computational resources, they can compound those gains and race ahead of competitors, making it impossible for startups to keep up. Hugging Face aims to make state-of-the-art AI technologies accessible to everyone, not just the tech giants. [...] Access to compute poses a significant challenge to constructing large language models, often favoring companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, which secure deals with cloud providers for substantial computing resources. Hugging Face aims to level the playing field by donating these shared GPUs to the community through a new program called ZeroGPU. The shared GPUs are accessible to multiple users or applications concurrently, eliminating the need for each user or application to have a dedicated GPU. ZeroGPU will be available via Hugging Face's Spaces, a hosting platform for publishing apps, which has over 300,000 AI demos created so far on CPU or paid GPU, according to the company. Access to the shared GPUs is determined by usage, so if a portion of the GPU capacity is not actively utilized, that capacity becomes available for use by someone else. This makes them cost-effective, energy-efficient, and ideal for community-wide utilization. ZeroGPU uses Nvidia A100 GPU devices to power this operation -- which offer about half the computation speed of the popular and more expensive H100s. "It's very difficult to get enough GPUs from the main cloud providers, and the way to get them -- which is creating a high barrier to entry -- is to commit on very big numbers for long periods of times," Delangue said. Typically, a company would commit to a cloud provider like Amazon Web Services for one or more years to secure GPU resources. This arrangement disadvantages small companies, indie developers, and academics who build on a small scale and can't predict if their projects will gain traction. Regardless of usage, they still have to pay for the GPUs. "It's also a prediction nightmare to know how many GPUs and what kind of budget you need," Delangue said.

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Palo Alto Networks is acquiring IBM's QRadar cloud software and migrating customers to its Cortex Xsiam platform as part of a broader partnership aimed at expanding its consulting capabilities and customer base. The sum of the deal was not disclosed. CNBC reports: The move normally takes one to three months, Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto's CEO, told CNBC. Also, IBM will train more than 1,000 of its consulting employees on Palo Alto's products. [...] For IBM, a more robust lineup of contemporary security tools for consulting might help the company deliver on its stated goal of revenue growth in the mid-single digits for 2024. In the first quarter, revenue increased 3%, with a 2% bump in the consulting segment. Palo Alto is growing much faster than IBM. In the January quarter, revenue jumped 19%. The company will report results for the latest quarter on Monday. Palo Alto more than doubled in value last year and its stock is up 6% year to date, lifting the company's market cap past $100 billion. The stock rose more than 1% in extended trading. IBM is up close to 5% this year and is now valued at $154 billion. The companies said the transaction should close by the end of September, subject to regulatory approval and other conditions. [...] IBM will continue to sell its QRadar software for use in on-premises data centers. At the same time, IBM will suggest that clients using it consider switching to Palo Alto's Cortex Xsiam.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Facebook and Instagram are under formal investigation in the European Union over child protection concerns, the Commission announced Thursday. The proceedings follow a raft of requests for information to parent entity Meta since the bloc's online governance regime, the Digital Services Act (DSA), started applying last August. The development could be significant as the formal proceedings unlock additional investigatory powers for EU enforcers, such as the ability to conduct office inspections or apply interim measures. Penalties for any confirmed breaches of the DSA could reach up to 6% of Meta's global annual turnover. Meta's two social networks are designated as very large online platforms (VLOPs) under the DSA. This means the company faces an extra set of rules -- overseen by the EU directly -- requiring it to assess and mitigate systemic risks on Facebook and Instagram, including in areas like minors' mental health. In a briefing with journalists, senior Commission officials said they suspect Meta of failing to properly assess and mitigate risks affecting children. They particularly highlighted concerns about addictive design on its social networks, and what they referred to as a "rabbit hole effect," where a minor watching one video may be pushed to view more similar content as a result of the platforms' algorithmic content recommendation engines. Commission officials gave examples of depression content, or content that promotes an unhealthy body image, as types of content that could have negative impacts on minors' mental health. They are also concerned that the age assurance methods Meta uses may be too easy for kids to circumvent. "One of the underlying questions of all of these grievances is how can we be sure who accesses the service and how effective are the age gates -- particularly for avoiding that underage users access the service," said a senior Commission official briefing press today on background. "This is part of our investigation now to check the effectiveness of the measures that Meta has put in place in this regard as well." In all, the EU suspects Meta of infringing DSA Articles 28, 34, and 35. The Commission will now carry out an in-depth investigation of the two platforms' approach to child protection.

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Russia is increasingly seeking to encourage and direct hackers to attack British and other western targets, the director of GCHQ has said in her first keynote speech as head of the British intelligence agency. From a report: Anne Keast-Butler said her agency was "increasingly concerned about growing links" between the Russian intelligence services and proxy hacker groups who have long taken advantage of a permissive environment within the country. "Before, Russia simply created the right environments for these groups to operate but now they're nurturing and inspiring these non state cyber actors," she said in a speech to the Cyber UK conference, in what she described as a "globally pervasive" threat. The spy chief, appointed last year to be the first woman to hold the role, referenced the threat from ransomware -- "the most acute and pervasive cyber threat" -- where cybercriminals, typically from Russia, take control of a company's data and systems and demand significant sums to regain access. GCHQ was "doing everything we can" to counter ransomware actors, Keast-Butler said, degrade their ability to attack systems across government and business and to "produce intelligence that means those involved in ransomware are held to account." There is "no hiding place" for cybercriminals she added.

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